CLAIM: Former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), says reshoring American manufacturing would be a boon for the environment because the United States leads the world in clean energy.
VERDICT: True. Research has routinely shown that reshoring American manufacturing does, in fact, cut carbon emissions.
“One of the things that our Democrat friends keep talking a lot about is carbon emissions, this idea that carbon emissions drives climate change … well, let’s just say that’s true … if you believe that, what would you want to do?” Vance said at Tuesday evening’s vice presidential debate:
The answer is that you’d want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible and you’d want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world. [Emphasis added]
“If we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, we actually have to double down and invest in American workers and the American people,” Vance continued.
From solar panels to aluminum die castings to silicon photovoltaics, across industries, research shows that reshoring manufacturing to the U.S. would help cut carbon emissions.
“We project that if the U.S. could fully bring c-Si PV panel manufacturing back home by 2035, the estimated greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption would be 30% and 13% lower, respectively, than having relied on global imports in 2020, as solar power emerges as a major renewable energy source,” researchers wrote in a report published last year:
If the reshored manufacturing target is achieved by 2050, the climate change and energy impacts would be further reduced by 33% and 17%, compared to the 2020 level. [Emphasis added]
Likewise, if solar panel manufacturing was reshored to the U.S., carbon emissions would drop dramatically if China was cut out of that supply chain.
“Manufacturing all silicon solar panels to be deployed in the United States domestically would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 23% and energy use by 4% compared to outsourced manufacturing, according to a new analysis,” researchers wrote last year.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
